St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-10-16
The Rice street District.

This has been one of the most neg
lected districts around the city. Not
until few years ago was there any
Rice street, except very bad wagon
road to McCarron'S lake. j. j. Hill, at
his own cost, expended $4,000 on par
tial grade of Rice street ten miles out to
his fine stock farm. This has been fol-
lowed by bridging where the Manitoba
railroad crosses, and matchmaking
mile or two out, andrecently the street
has been paved with cedar blocks. 1t
is now the longest thOrOughfare in the
city, except Seventh street, and divides
several populOus townships in Ramsey
county and the western part of AnOka
country out about Centerville, 1t runs
through the prettieSt lake district in the
OwaSsO, Sandy lake, Pleasant lake,
Lake Vadnais and numerous smaller
lakes. The project of widening Rice
street and making it a handsome boule-
ward driveway to White Bear lake is in
the hands of a committee of the Rice
Street Improvement association, and
these numerous lakes will make it SuS-
ceptible of being developed into the
most pleasant, romantic and picturesque
boulevard to White Bear lake. The
first lake, Lake McCarron, is said to be
the deepest lake anywhere near st.
Paul, fed by springs, and i'll some parts
NO BOTTOM HAS BEEN FOUND.
A private citizen last spring, owning
property around it, stocked it with 75,-
000 fish and has donated the right of way
for handsome driveway araund it.
This project is also i'll the hands of a
committee to carry to completion. The
Como and Phalen boulevard, to be two
hundred feet wide, crosses Rice street at
the Northern Pacific station. But that
which is destined to make the greatest
development in this district is the rail
road and street car extension. The
Northern Pacific railroad has station at
Rice street. The 500 is to have another,
the Minneapolis IL st. Louis, and West
Wisconsin come in Oh the tracks of the
Northern Pacific; the Burlington IL
Northern are reported to be contemplate
ing the same route. With so large a
proportion of our seventeen railroads
centering there now, what will be the
situation when we have fifty roads?
Other roads will doubles find this the
most convenient and central point for
their vast future necessities, and
the development to be looked for from
this railroad concentration, is to be
something like what has happened by
the concentration of railroads at the
1TalSIer. a new union depot some
where out Rice street is among the
probabilities and some think among the
probabilities of the future. But prob
ably the most powerful factor that is to
revOlutioniZe the suburban Rice street
district is the extension of the street
cars from University avenue to Front
street, which has just happened, and
the further extension to MARYLAND
street by the Sth of November, as
officially announced in a letter pub
lished a few days since from the street
car company. This is a mile and half
extension and reaches within 400 yards
of the Rice Street Villas at the Northern
Pacific station. This will stimulate
settlement out Rice street and open up
LARGE AREA FOR HOMES
for the people that has heretofore been
inaccessible. Thus it is that new i'm
provements are constantly developing
st. Paul, and the great advance in the
prices of her real estate has a solid basis
of substantial reasons, totally unlike
the blooms that blow bubbles in small
towns.